


Jonathan

by labingi



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labingi/pseuds/labingi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-XMFC: Erik in a hotel room, considering love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jonathan

It was calling to Erik like a key someone had squirreled away in a lockbox. With a sudden resolution (resignation?), he opened the bedside drawer and took out the Gideon Bible, grass green encasement of the Lord's Prayer in two thousand languages.

The clock on the nightstand read a quarter to one. In the room next door a couple laughed with a drunken gaiety. Why must it seem a mark of failure to be alone in a hotel room? It gave him a sense of old, trusted freedom, striking out on his own, executing solo maneuvers faster than his brotherhood could. Yet still, the emptiness of the room filled the space where, not long ago, in a succession of such rooms, he had been so emphatically not-alone.

It was the King James translation, but there was nothing he could do about that. He thumbed it, tracing dim recollections in other languages. 2 Samuel? 1 Samuel? Nahash, Jabesh, Agag, Goliath--

 _And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul._ Chapter 18--

\--Merab, Michal (sister given as bride to the rival)--

Chapter 20: _And thou shalt not only when I live shew me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not, But also shalt thou not cut off thy kindness from my house forever: no, not when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth._

Consider the idea of showing kindness, of mercy poured on our transgressions down the generations, forever.

 _So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, Let the Lord even require it at the hands of David's enemies. And Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul._

He remembered the Adelmans' gray-pink rug, the frayed tassels he would pick at as he sat between Daniel and the Adelman twins, the Young Rabbi Herzog saying something or other about Jonathan as the model of selfless love--love that loves with no investment in the lover's own prosperity, love that can love the man who will usurp your father and rob you of your kingdom, love that covenants with the enemy because you love him as yourself.

When two such souls covenant--where was it; it was in there somewhere...

 _Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between thee and me, and between thy seed and my seed for ever._

 _And then he arose and departed._

So who becomes king? Who the unchosen, the goat to the slaughter? Whose children will stand over whose and remember--as they must remember--to spare their brethren because covenant conjoined them? The fate of the world demanded the answer, but the core of the soul knew only that thy love was wonderful.

He laid the Bible in the drawer and lay down in the remembering dark.


End file.
